Tommy Viola takes the origal critique of the brothers to a new level and he is dead on. We have been scammed by two brilliant marketers named Wachowski.

So the point is...the Wachowski Bros don’t have to make Neo into Aslan, they just need to be respectful of Aslan?

It’s more than a little silly to get uptight because someone registers incredulity toward all salvation narratives and transcendence in general. This isn’t exactly radical stuff anymore. The theologians have all been there long ago, and the folks concerned about increasing the number of the saved should provoke incredulity since they look more and more like any other materialist cult. 

I appreciate the job this essay did in expanding upon and explaining the ideas in the previou one.  I have to agree with Dan, though—if this is what the WB’s were saying in the second film, it isn’t very original or even very new.  It’s actually, well, cliche.  Since they make no claim to be Christian, why the expectations?

But I think the premise is still flawed. While the thesis is credible, we really don’t know that Neo won’t be a savior of sorts until after the third film is released. And is this really what was being said in the second film?  In some ways, I agree, all bets were off in the second film since the Oracle was discovered to work for the system.  That makes all the prophecies, well, questionable, since they were designed to get Neo to the Mainframe and integrate with it. 

But at the same time Neo is still unquestionably a remarkably gifted person and at the end we see his abilities extend beyond what has been recognized as part of the Matrix so far.  What does this mean?

Remember the scene in the first movie where Neo first met the Oracle?  She told him to watch out for the vase, Neo knocked it over, and then she said that what would really bake his noodle later on is the question, “Would you have knocked it over if I hadn’t said anything?” I think the Oracle intuitive abilities really give her the power of self fulfilling prophecies.  If Neo really does defeat the computers at the end of the third film, then the film’s thesis is that mechanisms of control are ultimately self defeating.  And Neo, of course, would still be a savior.

I think the reality is that the thesis suggested by this article and the previous one exists in the films _alongside of_ salvation narratives, not in place of it. 

Just making the WBs very confused people.

I won’t know for sure, though, till the third film.

Jim

More thoughts:

Here’s a question for the savior discussion: is someone a savior because they choose to save you or because you choose to be saved by them? Think about it, Jesus is the savior of Christians and Jews, without question, but is he the savior of those who would go to Hell? According the Christian theology, salvation from eternity in Hell is acquired by belief in and acceptance of Jesus (that’s really abstract, I know, but I think it’s an idea that is fairly clear to the general populace), so is Jesus the Savior of the world if the world rejects him? In turn, can Neo be the savior of humanity (those in the Matrix, because the freed-minds have already been saved) simply by his own choice or does he have to convince them to join him. If Neo destroys the Matrix, forcing humanity into the real-world (set aside the ‘ is Zion in the real world?’ debate for a minute) is he any better than the Matrix?

On a completely differant, inconsequencial angle that keeps coming back to me as I read these posts about the link between ‘The Matrix’ and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’: Wouldn’t Monica Bellucci be really good as the White Witch?

Jim,
Of course there are real humans, somewhere. I’m just doubting that Neo is one of them. And think about it logically: if you have a 1% of humanity that doesn’t accept the Matrix (a staggering number of people, if you think about it), wouldn’t you give them an alternative, in order to keep them in the powerplant? Zion is as much a part of the Matrix as the Heart O’ the City hotel, how else would the Architect have the power to recreate it after it was destroyed? Also, this fits into the Savior debate. Jesus had the body of a man and was susceptible to the same needs, desires, etc. of a man. However, he was still the direct descendant of God, he had the genetics of Mary, but the mind of God. Hence, he was not entirely human. This is the same with Neo, he has the same body as Trinity, Morpheus, or Zee (the sister of Tank and Dozer), but he is not a power plant, like they are. He is an anomaly, created by the system, that is why it is he who sees the Architect, not Morpheus or Trinity. The Oracle may have ‘made up’ the prophesy, but that doesn’t mean that there is no ‘One’. The Architect makes reference to the ‘One’, though not in those terms.

One thing you must always keep in mind while taking in fiction is that it takes place in a world completely separate to your own. Thus, the person who made up the story is the God of that world and the laws of physics, human thought, and existance conform to that person’s desires for them. We tend to value fiction that closely resembles our own world, however, it remains completely unreasonable to expect a piece of fiction (especially Science-Fiction) to be in compliance at all, much less completely, with your own world view. The Wachowski Brothers are trying to communicate a series of ideas to us, if there are some holes in the complete picture as far as certain logistics which may or may not have anything to do with the idea exist, sua culpa, let it slide. Nobody rags on Homer for having Achilles’ death blow come to his ankle when it would be extremely diffacult for someone to die from a blow to the ankle. All I’m saying is: try to see this movie from the perspective of the Wachowski Brothers. Only through the eyes of its creator can a creation be fully understood.

I am sorry if that seems disrespectful, but this a very personnal subject for me. 

No no no, on a number of points.

First, you misunderstand me completely if you think I’m reading the film in a way that complies with a “world view” of my own.  You should read the piece I’ve written for the two films myself, if you have the time:

http://www.riverwestcurrents.org/2003/June/000695.html

There’s a link from that short review to a full length scholarly article I’ve written as well.  I try to be descriptive of the issues raised by the films without remaking them in my own image.  I see both very influenced by Baudrillard, and while I respect his writing I’m hardly a follower of his.

But this is beside the point.  It’s a very big mistake to think the meaning of any work is primarily determined by authorial intent.  The films don’t mean, in other words, “what the WB’s intend it to mean,” only that, or even mainly that.  Once they put a story out there it takes on a life of its own.  They don’t own the language or imagery they use to construct meaning—they borrow it, in fact, from a number of religions, fictional sources, and philosophical sources that are very easily identified, in most cases.  So the film’s meaning didn’t originate with them and it certainly doesn’t end with them.

This statement from you, though, pre-supposes that your reading of the film is the same as the WB’s.  Do you have a specific reason to believe that, or are you just convinced you’re right, so you assume that it must be the case? I think the latter, in which case you need to at least be open to the possibility that you may be mistaken.  In previous discussions I’ve conceded what you said as a possibility, saying we’d just have to wait for the third film to know for sure.  You sound very sure about it, though, so I think you’re overstating your case.  I’m not saying you don’t have a point, or that what you say isn’t a possibility, just that there’s no way to be sure about it yet, and that there are problems with what you suggest as well.

Jim
(continued below)

As regards my personnal interpretation, I try to see the film through their eyes. I’ve read interviews and such that pertain to the Matrix and their thoughts and feelings. I do not presume to have their full thinking on it, but I do know that the Wachowskis have said “good fiction asks the big questions”. So I look for the big question in the film and their thesis to it. To be very clear, I believe that ‘Reloaded’ is a question about fate and free-will, anything else I say is simply counter-point to what other people are saying. I believe that the ‘fate v. free-will’ debate has roots, or at least affect, in theological debates, but I do not believe that there is any inherant theological debate within ‘The Matrix’ or its sequels. As to my ‘overstating my case’, when in a discussion I simply cannot take seriously anyone who talks in only ‘possibilities’ and ‘liklihoods’. I am well aware that I cannot speak with any particular authority about ‘The Matrix’, I can however speak very authoritatively about my opinions and I assumed that it was a given that we are speaking in opinions, thus making reiderations about the fact that we are speaking in opinions seemed like a waste of time.

My points about seeing the film through the Wachowski’s eyes came from your comments which seem completely unconcerned with the Wachowski’s intent. I must disagree with your statement: “It’s a very big mistake to think the meaning of any work is primarily determined by authorial intent.” I believe that a film can communicate more than it was intended to, but not ‘mean’. ‘Reloaded’ communicated a great deal to me, including the relationship between socialism and communism, but the film does not mean the struggle of capitolism versus communism. A lot of people read the Chronicles of Narnia as a Christian metaphor, but that isn’t what it meant. C.S. Lewis’ own interviews say that he was simply writing fantasy stories. Because of his ‘Sense of Life’, as Ayn Rand would say, Christian morality and a certain amount of symbolism snuck in. But C.S. Lewis was very frustrated that nobody saw the books for what they were: pure fantasy for children.

I’m still not really clear how Neo being a computer program “explains everything.” I think it may be possible to come up with a coherent reading of the film that explains this idea, but it really only works if the world we take as the “real world” is also a simulation - remember that whole thing where he “woke up” in the first movie.

If you assume that, though, you create a whole bunch of problems, such as...why bother? Why have these people wake up to just another segment of the Matrix?  Why not just kill them?  Some real escape must be possible—some place where the computer isn’t in control—but the assumption that Neo is a computer program makes this impossible.  The thesis causes more problems than it solves.

You don’t really understand my expectations of “Reloaded.” I didn’t have any.  I also thought it was a very entertaining film and saw it more than once.  The car chase scene is certainly among the best filmed, if not the best filmed, and the fight scenes hardly disappoint either.  That doesn’t mean I’m not critical, though.  I didn’t expect the second film to “leap over” the first film.  But comparing the two, it is much less dense philosophically—and even on the level of plot—than the first film.  In previous comments I partially chalked this up to it being a middle movie, for good or bad. 

So I don’t think my opinion of the film really has anything to do with our disagreement.  It’s certainly irrelevant to your thesis.

Jim

PS I’d agree that Christ’s nature is far more complicated than we can imagine or express, but to the extent that orthodoxy has been defined we should try to understand it.  It’s never a matter of any proportion between humanity and divinity—it’s always fully both.

A moral question based on that ever so cool freeway scene. It was brought up by the love of my life in specific reference to the lobby scene in ‘The Matrix’, but it is the same question. There were a lot of explosions and car crashes on the freeway, inevitably a lot of people were injured and most likely killed, not to mention the collateral damage. How do you justify that? Sure the matrix world isn’t real, but it is inhabited by real people. Real people, people who had no intentions in regards to Morpheus, Trinity and the Keymaker, were killed and those who weren’t are going to have a really diffacult time explaining what happened to their insurance company. Also the opening scene (which happened for real later on) where all of those security guards were killed. That’s families who now don’t have fathers, possibly incomes. What makes the lives of freed-minds more important than those of un-freed minds? Are they less human? That’s something I’ve wondered about, the question of the sanctity of life in ‘The Matrix’ films.

Red Pill said:

“If we assume that Zion exists in the real world, than Neo must be as human as Trinity and Morpheus, because a computer
program cannot exist outside of a computer.”

Yep, that’s the assumption I’ve been working with.  I think you still may be working with an idea of “proportional” humanity—that to the degree you’re a program, you’re less human.  Everyone trapped within the Matrix is fully human.  While in the Matrix, their consciousness takes on the characteristics of a computer program and their physical existence helps a computer(s) survive.  They are fully human, but are _serving the functions_ of a computer program and a power source.  The one doesn’t detract from the other at all. 

“However, we must remember that the Architect said: “Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation
inherent to the programming of the Matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which, despite my sincerest efforts, I
have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision.”
This makes Neo sound like a program. But the Architect also says that Neo is human. But now the Architect has made
Neo sound like both program and human.”

You’re confusing yourself :).  Yes, Neo is both program and human. Everyone attached to the Matrix in any way is both program and human.  Fully both. One role doesn’t interfere with the other—and you have to see the “program” part of human existence as a role that humans play in the Matrix, not a thing that they become.  Remember, their minds are hardwired into the Matrix, so that humans’ physical, biological minds are extensions of a vast computer program.

Neo, as The One, has a special meaning/function to the computers outside of his direct connection to the Matrix.  He represents the very nature of the anomaly that gives rise to Zion time after time after time.  That’s why the Architect wants him to integrate with the mainframe, so the computers can integrate that particular anomaly into their programming and gain that much more control.

Jim

more below.

I have disagreements with your statements on the Matrix/Zion relationship, but we won’t make any progress until ‘Revolutions’ comes out, so I’m not going to pursue the point any further, at this time.

I have absolutely no qualms with acing agents, and in the context of a battle between a freed-mind and an agent, I can give a certain level of forgiveness for collateral damage and civilian casualties. But the free-way scene, where the freed-minds are just running from the agents (and the Twins), that stuff begs some serious questions. But it’s actually the scenes with the security guards is most troubling. In both films, a lot of security guards are killed so that the freed-minds can have free access to the building. The scenes, especially in the first, are very exciting, but the casualties are not under the direct orders of the agents. This isn’t like the Vietnam war where the women and children were directly part of the war effort, this is a hidden war, very few people know about it. If I have one complaint with the Wachowski’s story-telling is that they copped out on some really tense scenes of the freed-minds sneaking in, avoiding the security guards, to have nicely choreographed, but otherwise unspectacular fight scenes.

Is double posting allowed - anyway, while insightful and illuminating neither this interpretation nor the previous one makes enough of the tripartite structure of the whole ‘piece’.  One of the things Read’s original metaphilm review pointed out was that the Matrix 1 was an attempt to do a philosophical disquisition in the mode of an action flick.  If we carry this insight on, one of the basic structures of much philosophical discourse is it comes in three parts: thesis, antithesis and then synthesis.  If it works for Aquinas and Hegel, why not the brothers Wachowski?

Thus Matrix 1 posed the question (albeit in an overly Gnostic form for my tastes) of whether there really is a supersensory world outside or beyond this one, a world which intrudes upon our reality: real and imagined.  Reloaded sets up the antithesis: there is no supersensory world – only a material universe from which there is no exit or salvation, we must make of it what we will.  The crucial scene is Neo’s conversation with the Architect – this both proposes the antithesis and presents the options within that argument.  These options come in the form of the two doors Neo has to choose between, which are in effect a choice between two forms of Darwinism/materialistic determinism: if there is no supersensory dimension then the choice is between a Richard Dawkins ‘Selfish Gene’ type view in which Neo opts to perpetuate his genes as the dominant ones in the human species or we have a Steve Jones-type argument in which even though we live in a closed material system love/altruism and freedom of choice are still a possibility.

I await Matrix: Revolutions to see what the synthesis will be – the final scene of Matrix: Reloaded is ambiguous.  Anyway, all of this is to say I don’t think it’s a ‘bait and switch’ – perhaps the Matrix is still holding to its original direction…we shall soon see.

Luke

Personnally I’m a little disapointed by how narrow the discussion on the Salvation narrative has been. I think that the narative set up in ‘The Matrix’ is intact completely at the end of ‘Reloaded’. The question is: what are we being saved from?

Most people just assume that a salvation narrative must be directly linked to Jesus. What is far more likely is Socrates, or even Martin Luther. If we assume that Neo is Jesus, why is he dating the Trinity? Jesus is ‘God the Son’, part of the Trinity. This is where the Martin Luther theory first makes sense. Through the guiding and support of Trinity, and she is the one that leads him to Morpheus, Neo accepts his destiny as a warrior trying to save the MINDS of people (the soul never comes up in Matrix mythos). The romantic connection between Trinity and Neo is also supported: the Bible repeatedly refers to God as a Groom coming to claim his bride. Okay, so the sexes are backwards, whoopty-smeg.

But I think that Socrates is a far more likely candidate for Neo’s metaphorical ancestor. Think about it, the Oracle tells Morpheus that he will find the One. Morpheus tells Neo that he is the One and Neo doesn’t believe it, so he sets out to prove that he isn’t by rescuing Morpheus, but only succeeds in proving that he is the One. Then, in Reloaded, he (unwillingly) takes on a protege, Kid. Kid revears Neo as his savior and so on…
Okay, replace ‘Morpheus’ with ‘Chaerephon’, ‘Neo’ with ‘Socrates’, ‘Kid’ with ‘Plato’ and you’ve got a pretty close match. The romantic sub-plot could be a signification of Socrates’ rejection of Greek religion (though it’s unlikely Socrates was a Christian, some scholars, including C.S. Lewis, believe that he had some connection to it). All of the leather, kung fu, and techno-rock is the standard Hollywood gloss.

What can easily be mistaken for Gnosticism may be, in fact, simple Biblical nihilism: Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity. (Eccl. 11:7-8) Basically: nothing a human can do will last, and is therefore meaningless; the only things that last are created by God, and thus are all that matter. By Christian tradition, only the human soul will go to heaven to live forever. Hence, our bodies are meaningless and only our soul matters. That’s not Gnosticism, but superficially, it’s an easy mistake.